distressed when we meet any Americans, because I am sure
that they think that you have not been well brought up."

Von Ibn shrugged _his_ shoulders.

"There are not many Americans here to think anything," he said
carelessly, "and all the Europeans whom we meet know that I am well
brought up whichever side I may choose to walk upon." He bowed again to
some carriage people.

She trailed her pace a little and then paused; he was such a temptation
that she could not resist.

"I do wish," she said earnestly, "that to please me you would do as I
ask you, just this once!"

He stopped short and stared first at her and then at the lake.

"I wonder," he said slowly,--"I wonder if we are to be together ever
after these days?"

"Why do you wonder that? Would you rather never see me again than do
something to please me?"

"No, no," he said hastily, a little shock in his tone, "but you must
understand that if we are to be much together I cannot begin with the
making of my obedience to suit you. And yet, if it is but for these two
days, I can very well do whatever you may wish."

He moved out of the line so as to think maturely upon such a weighty
matter. She covered her real interest in his meditations with an
excellent assumption of interest in the superb view before her. The Rigi
was towering there, and its crest and the crests of all its lofty
neighbors were brightly silvered by the descending sun. From Pilatus on
the right, away to the green banks of Weggis and Vitznau on the left,
the lake spread in blue and bronze, and by the opposite shore the
water's calm was such that a ghostly Lucerne of the under-world lay
upside down just beneath its level, and mocked reality above by the
perfection of detail. Little bright-sailed boats danced here and there,
a large steamer was gliding into the landing by the Gare, and the music
from a band aboard came floating to their ears.

That little gray mother-duck who raises so many families under the
shelter of the Schweizerhof Quai presently noticed these two silent
people, and, suspecting them of possessing superfluous bread, came
hastily paddling to the feast. It made Rosina feel badly to see the
patient little creature wait there below; but she was breadless, and
could only muse over the curious similarity of a woman's lot with a
hungry duck's, until the duck gave up in despair and paddled off,
leaving a possible lesson in her wake.

"Oh dear!" she exclaimed then, "I'm going t